


The starry sky

by lockedlocke



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Bottom Steve Rogers, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, High School Reunion, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Angst, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, POV Steve Rogers, Sex on the back of a pickup truck, Shameless Smut, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Top Bucky Barnes, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:55:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockedlocke/pseuds/lockedlocke
Summary: Upon receiving an invitation to his High School reunion, Steve decides to go purely out of spite. What he doesn't take into consideration, however, is that he will have to face Bucky again for the first time in years.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 54
Kudos: 406





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely unbeta'd, and recently found again when I was cleaning out my folders. The fic is completed, and I'll post the second chapter in a couple of days. 
> 
> Ngl, this is inspired by that soft picture that went around of Chris Evans when that doofus went to his own High School Reunion.

Steve is not having a good day. He should have known when he woke up that morning and the sky was pouring with water. Not just rain, but water. Like the not so great Lord up above decided to flood his bathroom and not give a fuck how the apartment underneath him flooded. Then at work he just got the project he had been working on back from review, learned he had to do the entire thing over again because the customer to the company had a change of heart on the design. On top of that, his mouse arm started hurting around one in the afternoon and became unbearable. Meaning that he wouldn’t be able to work out in the evening even  _ if _ it was the best thing to do for his arm, but not with that pain. 

Later, when Steve dug through his bag in search for painkillers he learned he didn’t have any on him. Then on the walk home from work he remembered it was Tuesday. Tuesday was the only freaking day when his favorite Chinese restaurant was closed meaning he would have to cook. By the time that he came up to his apartment and tried to find enough food to cook for the evening, he also found out that he basically had nothing, and that he had to go out in the rain again for groceries. 

Sure, he could always order Pizza, but the last time he had done that he had caught a stomach bug and spent a week heaving over the toilet before he finally sweated it out. So Steve was not having a great day. Week. Month. Year.  _ Life _ . 

By the time that he made his second trip back up to his apartment, carrying a woven back with groceries, he only stopped to pick up his mail. He had decided to make it quick and say fuck it in regards to cooking. He had bought a pot of tomato sauce, tortellini, a six pack of beer and a bottle of coke. He’d deal with real life the next day. Today was the Tuesday of hell and he was gonna sit on his ass with a plate of food and start a shitty show on Netflix that he could get somewhat drunk on. 

Steve unlocks the door to his apartment and lets himself in. His elbow is still throbbing a little, despite the brace, and his shoulder is being attacked by pinpricks. He carries the groceries inside to the kitchen and dumps the bag on the table, dumps the mail down beside it and tugs off his jacket. He hangs it up in the hallway and takes a detour to his bathroom and grabs the bottle of painkillers, shakes two out of it and swallows it down with water. 

He changes out of his jeans and into pajama pants, changes his shirt which is sticking to his back in an uncomfortable way, and then walks out to the kitchen again. The moment he enters it his phone starts to ring. Steve looks at the phone, sees Sam’s name on the screen and a picture that they had taken once years ago while out drinking, swipes his thumb across the screen and places his phone against his ear. 

“You have no idea how shitty my day has been today please tell me you’ve got some good news,” Steve says and takes a glass out of the cupboard. Sam, the bastard that is supposed to be his best friend just bursts out laughing on the other end of the phone as if he’s never heard anything more hysterical. Steve rolls his eyes and puts the phone down. Both to give himself a moment where he doesn’t have to listen to the freakin laughter, and so he can use both of his hands to pour out a glass of coke without spilling it. 

When he picks the phone back up again, Sam is seemingly starting to calm down from his hysterics. Steve sips of his coke and turns around to grab a pot and fill it up with water. “ _ Man I’m sorry I didn’t mean to laugh like that. It was just a hysterical opening line, _ ” Sam says. Steve supposes that he could give Sam that. It would have caught him off guard if he called someone and that was the first thing that he heard. “ _ What’s up? Why’s your day so shitty?”  _ Sam asks him, instantly forgetting what he was supposed to say in the first place. 

Steve sighs, fills the pot up with enough water and puts it on the stove, turning it on. Then as he unpacks the remains of his groceries he begins to tell Sam what made his day so shitty. The more he talks, the more it’s beginning to sound like a rant. But Sam stays quiet and listens to everything that Steve has to say anyway without interrupting him. 

What begins as telling Sam what had been bothering him for the day, soon evolves into telling him what’s been wrong all week, then all month. Steve would have continued and would have ranted on and explained what was wrong with his life, but before he gets the chance to do so Sam finally does cut him off. “ _ Dude you need a break, _ ” 

“I know,” Steve groans and extends his leg, the water in the pot boiling now, softening up the tortellini. There’s little left in his glass of coke. The groceries are unpacked, and all that’s left on the table is his mail which Steve hasn’t bothered to look through. It’s mostly bills, he suspects. Yet, he starts to toy with them. He tosses the Verizon bill further away, and the bill for his rent. “Where the fuck am I gonna go though?” 

“ _ I don’t know. Where do you want to go, where can you afford to go? _ ” Sam asks, Steve snorts. He could afford to go anywhere if he wanted too. It’s just a question for how long. Something gives him a feeling that if he leaves his apartment in New York to go away for a while, that he’s not coming back. He’s feeling on the edge of a burnout. The prickles in his shoulder only confirms it. 

“I don’t know Sam.” Steve sighs and rubs his face. Then he frowns. Amongst the letters he sees one that has a handwritten address on it.  _ Stephen Rogers. _ Still, the address is a match, so Steve opens it. “I just got a letter with a handwritten address on it,” Steve says and takes the letter out, changing the topic from their discussion. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore anyway. 

“ _ Do people still write letters these days? _ ” Sam asks, jumping on board with the new conversation within a heartbeat. In the background it sounds like he’s switching channels every other second. 

“I don’t know, hold on,” Steve mutters when he begins to read he letter. Behind him the sound of the water boiling drowns out. He reads the letter once, twice, and then thrice. He puts it down on the table and stares into the wall, then reads it a fourth time to make sure that he hadn’t imagined it all to begin with. “What the…”

“ _ Steve? What’s in the letter? Did you win a million dollars? _ ” Sam asks on the phone, and somehow he sounds far, far away before he snaps close again. Steve clears his throat and picks up the letter. He can’t believe it, the bastards. 

“I just got an invitation to my High School Reunion,” Steve mutters under his breath and puts the letter back down. “The bastards sent me an invitation to the High School reunion!” Steve says, speaking louder than he intended to. He doesn’t really know why it aggravates him so much. He should have moved on he thinks, part of him just wants to be able to throw the letter away and forget he even got it in the first place. Be the bigger man. 

But… fuck. He can’t be the bigger man when it involves  _ them _ . 

“ _ Oh that could be fun, _ ” Sam chimes in. Steve rolls his eyes, of course Sam thinks it should be exciting. Sam was the one who was the popular kid in his High School, with tons of friends. Sam was the one person who as an adult looks back at High School like an enjoyable period in his life that he’d love to revisit. 

“Sam, for years they thought my name was Steven with a P and an H. My teachers thought my name was Steven with a P and an H, they addressed the freaking letter with a P and an H. I was bullied, mercilessly for several years. No, it will not be fun. The gall that they think I’ll go all the way back to Iowa to attend a reunion surrounded by the people who bullied me for years, no. It will not be fun. I’m not going,” Steve grumbles, takes a breath and finishes his drink. Then before he knows it, he starts talking again. “And besides. Who the fuck even goes to their high school reunion? High school is the time off your life that you look back on and realize you hate every single person you ever met. Or damn well near everyone. Seriously. Why the fuck would I want to go to that? Why did they even bother sending an invitation and more importantly, how did they even find me to send one?!”

“ _ Steve it’s just an invitation, calm down,”  _ Sam says, which does exactly nothing in regards to helping Steve calm down. Steve just mutters and gets up to turn off the stove and pour off the water. “ _ You don’t have to go, but you can. Think about it, you need to get out of town anyway, when is it? It could be fun. Maybe they’ve changed, maybe you’ll just sit with your friends and talk shit about how the assholes are still assholes. You did have at least one friend didn’t you?”  _

Steve grumbles again under his breath, not answering for as long as he’s pouring off the water. “One, sort of,” Steve admits and tries not to think of him. Tries not to let Bucky enter his mind again. It doesn’t work. Before him he can see Bucky, just how he left him like it only happened yesterday. Ripped jeans, combat boots, a black leather jacket and wearing a t-shirt with the logo of his father’s auto-shop on it. 

“ _ Sort of, what does that even mean? _ ” Sam asks, having none of Steve’s bullshit apparently. Steve sighs and puts the tortellini back in the now empty pot. “ _ How do you sort of just have one friend? _ ” He asks. Steve could give him a ton of responses to that, Sam the one who always was surrounded with friends doesn’t know about the friend you just had during lunch, because there was only one free table and somehow you always sat together. He doesn’t know about the kid who hid in the library just like you did.

Bucky however, was more than that. Bucky was an absolutely wonderful friend. Bucky was… so much more than a friend. It almost hurts to think about. 

“We didn’t part on the best of ways,” Steve eventually settles and tells Sam. It’s the truth, just not the whole truth. Sam doesn’t need to know the whole truth just yet Steve thinks. Maybe ever, the more he could leave behind of Iowa the better. 

“ _ Look, take my advice okay? Go to that reunion. Or the very least, go back to Iowa and go home. Take a vacation. Decide while you’re there if you’ll go to this reunion or not. It might be fun, it might not. Maybe people will have changed, maybe they won’t. Maybe you’ll go, and you’ll find that you’re the only one who actually made something with their life. Just go, get the fuck out of New York Steve, you’re going to burn out if you don’t take a break. So please, take my advice and at least go to Iowa, okay? _ ”

Steve hates that Sam sounds so convincing. He hates that he listened to what he had to say rather than just hang up on him and ignore everything that he had to say. He hates that he agrees. “Alright, fine. I’ll go.” 

\--

It’s a three hour drive from the nearest airport to Lewisville, so by the time that Steve reaches the only motel in town, it’s past midnight and he’s exhausted. When he pulls up and sees that the lights are out in the reception, he nearly throws a fit. He checks on google once more to see if it’s open at night, the website confirms that yes indeed, it is. So he gets out of his rental car and goes to check on the door. It’s unlocked however. 

He opens it and feels a little bit unsure if he should walk or not, but then the lamp flickers on and someone appears from the back room, staring at him with big eyes. “Holy shit,” The man blurts out and keeps staring at Steve, who’s beginning to feel uncomfortable. Then the man stammers. “Sorry uh, sorry. We don’t… get people anymore,” The man says and slides behind the counter. 

“Right,” Steve says, feeling a little on edge. Unsure what it is that does it. He can’t quite decide if it is the surprise of the hotel manager at a customer, acting out a scene from Psycho, or if it’s just because he’s back in Lewisville and has to interact with people that he might know. That scares him a little. In Lewisville everyone knew everything. If someone recognizes him they will ask him if he’s there for the reunion, and he’ll have to put up a fake smile and say that he is. 

Steve gives himself a mental shake and takes a breath. No more negativity, he came here with the intent of relaxing a little and getting away. He’s not going to be able to do that if he acts like every interaction is the worst one yet. “So uhm, do you have a room?” 

The man stumbles a little before he sets into work and pulls up the necessary paperwork. Steve tells him he doesn’t know how long he’ll be staying, and the man points out that it doesn’t really matter. _ It’s not like they need a room available _ , he says and lets out a nervous laugh before handing back Steve’s card and offers him a key. Steve gives him a forced smile and takes the key. Room number seven, good, then he should be far away enough from the reception to be alone and sleep through the night. 

Steve bids the man goodnight and heads back out. He gets in his car and parks it closer to the room. Once he’s actually inside it with his bag and everything, he’s struck with a big question mark as to why he even came in the first place. He could have gone to Hawaii, the Bahamas, South Africa, freaking India on a retreat if he wanted to. And yet here he was. In Lewisville of all places on the earth. 

When Steve tries to sleep that evening. He doesn’t. Not really. 

\--

“Is there anywhere where I can grab breakfast?” Steve asks the man sitting in the reception the following morning. It’s currently nine, and apparently he worked the entire night through. He doesn’t seem to be that tired however, and it makes Steve wonder if he slept on the job. Which… Steve really can’t blame him for. He probably would have done the same. 

“Sure, sure,” The man says and nods a couple of times, then he points straight across the street. In the dark last night Steve hadn’t even noticed the diner across the street. “It’s about the only place in town but it does serve the best pancakes in town. Or just sandwiches, you kinda look like a sandwich guy. I’m Ray by the way.” The man, now dubbed Ray, extends his hand for Steve to shake. 

“Thanks Ray.” Steve shakes the hand and takes his leave just as quick as he made his entrance. Steve bounces across the road and heads over to the diner. It’s a new place which he can’t remember being there from his youth, and it makes him wonder what happened with Connie’s. The new diner is called The Black Hawk, which makes Steve wonder who the hell would name a diner after a helicopter. But it’s relatively filled with people for an early morning so the food has to be somewhat good at least. 

He finds an empty booth and takes a seat, taking a moment to read the menu while the waitress runs around. Just as he made his decision of what to have, the waitress appears beside him by his table without a notepad. “What can I get you?” She asks, there’s an annoying sound of someone blowing up a piece of chewing gum and then popping it. Steve looks to her, and for a moment is a little bit to stunned to give her his order. 

“Natasha?” He asks, looking at the woman with big eyes. He’d remember that deep shade of red hair over everything. Now she has it tied to the back of her head in a high ponytail. She has dark and sooty make up around her eyes, but her face is identical still, although she looks more like a woman than a girl compared to the last time he saw her. She’s still as short as she was. She’s wearing an apron with the name of the diner on, and underneath that she wears a simple black t-shirt and yoga pants, her jogging shoes are bright red. 

For a second, Natasha’s eyes narrow, not liking that someone knows who she is before revelation goes up for her. “Holy shit, Steve!” Natasha exclaims. Steve raises his shoulders as if to say  _ guilty _ and smiles a little at her. “What brings you here? You here for the reunion or something?” She asks and punches him on his arm, which still hurts as much as he remembers it doing. 

“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.” Steve grumbles and rubs his arm. Then nods over to her. “How about you, how are you doing? You working in a diner?” Steve asks, trying to mask how he truly feels. He always imagined that Natasha would do more and do better than Lewisville. She talked about college when she was young just so she had a chance at something more. But when Natasha smiles she seems happy with herself. 

“Yeah I own this place, together with Clint. We got married by the way,” She says and offers him her left hand, where her ring finger is adorned by a silver ring and red little rubies in it. Steve gives her a surprised look which makes her bark out a laugh, then point over her shoulder. “He’s in the back, you know how he could make the best Sloppy Joe’s when we were kids? That’s kind of what we built this place up on him and I. We’re doing good,” Natasha’s smile is so big and so genuine that Steve has no other choice but to believe her. And he does, he’s happy for her. 

“So how’s New York? You still in New York?” Natasha asks next, completely forgetting that she’s supposed to take his order. Steve whistles a little at the loaded question and doesn’t quite know how to answer that. Somehow, by saying that he’s unhappy it feels like he’s failed. 

“You know, it’s big, it’s hectic, it’s New York. I work a lot, keep busy,” Steve says and begins to toy with one of the napkins. It’s the truth, as close as he wanted to come to it. Natasha looks at him for a delayed second, making Steve think that she’s seen through what he just told her. 

“So you here for the reunion? They’ve been working tons at it over in the school. That trio that you guys hated so much is putting in all the effort for it. And if you ask me they’re still acting like it was yesterday,” Natasha rolls her eyes and crosses her arms across her chest. Steve let’s out a little  _ ahh _ and knows exactly which three ladies she’s talking about, even if he’d rather not. 

“You know, maybe? I got the invitation but I haven’t quite decided if I’ll… you know. Go.” Steve shrugs a little and looks down to the napkin to avoid Natasha’s scrutinizing gaze, which he’s certain she’s currently giving to him. 

“Does Bucky know that you’re here?” She asks next. For some reason that Steve doesn’t know, that question feels like getting shot. Hell, Steve even feels guilty just thinking about the truth. He stops playing with the napkin and shakes his head. It’s Natasha’s turn to let out a little  _ ahh _ at that. 

“How… is he?” Steve dares himself to ask and looks up to Natasha. He  _ does _ want to know how Bucky is doing, no matter how badly things ended in between them. He still does care for Bucky, no matter if Bucky wants Steve to or not. Bucky was a solid fixture in Steve’s life, in more ways than one and he hasn’t forgotten that. If something Steve now feels a little bit guilty for leaving Lewisville and leaving Bucky behind. But what had he been supposed to do back then?

“He’s Bucky, same old same old,” Natasha says with a shrug, which really tells Steve nothing. He hasn’t seen Bucky in twenty years. Same old Bucky that he knows is probably very different from the same old Bucky that exists now. “He was angry for a long time. Mellowed out. He took over his dad’s shop when he died, turned it into a boarding kennel. He rehomes rescues who are about to be put down in kill shelters and all of that. Takes them in and finds them new and better homes.”

Steve smiles at that thought before nodding. “That sounds like something he’d do,” Steve says. He can imagine it right in front of him, Bucky surrounded with a bunch of dogs out in a field, throwing balls and sticks. Walking ten of them at the same time. Bucky would spend all his time and energy with them. It would make him the happiest. 

“He likes it,” Natasha says. “I got to get back to work now though, what do you want for breakfast? You’re coming here for dinner tonight right?” She asks him, and Steve promises her that he will. 

\--

When Steve leaves The Black Hawk (it’s name now making much more sense considering who owns it) he isn’t quite sure how to fill his time. He sleeps off his heavy breakfast for an hour or two, catching up on the sleep he didn’t quite get that night. The sausages, eggs, bacon and juice help with knocking him out. Or maybe he just feels more relaxed. 

By the time that Steve wakes up he just goes for a short walk to wake up from the sluggish feeling that’s still in control of him. Then he reads a little bit, tries his best to stay away from his laptop and do a bit of work. He had promised Sam not to do any work while he was gone and let his arm rest a little bit. But that proves to be harder said than done. 

To escape from his laptop and to ensure he doesn’t begin to work, Steve gets in his car and takes a drive through Lewisville to see if there’s anything he can do to kill time. He drives through Lewisville in just under four minutes and spots nothing. The local library doesn’t exist anymore, and is now a place called Ever Rest, and on the bench outside is a man sitting with a cane. The local cinema where Steve remembers spending a large part of his youth now sports a huge ‘Closed until further notice’ sign in the window, covering a cardboard cutout of a movie that was big four years ago. The park is small and depressing, with only a couple of geese wandering around, which Steve has no interest of coming close to. 

And that, depressingly so, is all there is to do in Lewisville, there’s absolutely nothing to do. 

For lack of other things to do, Steve makes a U-turn and heads back the direction where he came from, and then even further. Natasha’s words have him thinking, maybe he should tell Bucky he’s here. At the very least he wants to see this Boarding Kennel that Bucky seemed to have turned his father’s auto-shop into. 

That drive takes fifteen minutes, and Steve doesn’t encounter a single car on the way. He takes a left turn off the main road and onto a dirt road where he slows down a bit. Dust comes flying up under the crackle of the tires. Three minutes after driving on the small road, the trees start to grow a bit sparse. Steve parks the car by the side of the road and gets out, deciding to walk the rest of the way. 

The road is a dead end, and it’s nothing but suspicious when a car drives a mile into a dead end road, stands still in the driveway, then turns around and leaves. Steve doesn’t want to have the cops called on him, even if he realises that going by foot through the bit of woodland there is in between him and the boarding kennel now is just as stalkerish. 

He walks through the woodland, snapping a few branches as he goes. It takes him less than a minute to reach the outskirts of the treeline to see the house that he’s so familiar with. For every step that he took he felt positively worse, yet as soon as the old building comes into view Steve forgets that and is hit with an odd wave of nostalgia. Despite that Bucky’s home had very few positive memories for the pair of them. 

Steve had only been inside for a handful of times, but he remembers fully well sitting in Bucky’s truck and waiting for him to come out. Him and George would always part ways screaming at one another and slamming doors. The house still looks the same like Steve remembers it, though there is a new roof. The yard around it is fully cleaned up, no more scrap metal, skeletons of cars and bikes laying around. The building that once was the garage has gotten a fresh lick of paint and Bucky has replaced the doors, on the back of it there’s several kennels, but they’re empty. 

That’s when he spots him. Bucky is standing just at the edge of the field smoking a cigarette, holding a couple of leashes even if there’s no dog clipped to them. He’s wearing a top, and Steve recognizes him simply because of the tattoo on his forearm, though he seems to have added works to it over the years, he even has some work done on his calves, or he’s just dirty there. His hair is longer and tied to the back of his head in a messy bun, Bucky also seems to be bearded. 

There’s two dogs that sit beside him, panting in the hot sun, while another three are running around in the field playing with one another, given the freedom to roam. Steve finds himself smiling a little and leans against a tree nearby, trying to decide if he should go over and say hi. 

In the end, Steve decides against it. It’s nothing but weird to turn up without reason just to say hi. It only adds to the mild stalking that he’s already doing. So Steve tears his gaze away from Bucky and turns to head back to his car instead. Maybe Bucky will turn up to the reunion himself, even if he’s got just as much reason for Steve to go. He can go say hi at the reunion with a clear consciousness, and hope that Bucky doesn’t remember the anger that he carried within him when Steve moved away just by seeing his face. 

When Steve steps back in his car, he finds himself truly hoping that Bucky will come, and tries to tell himself that Bucky has many more reasons to attend the reunion. He has still lived here for the past twenty years, he knows these people. Bucky is going to be there, and maybe the reunion won't be that terrible. 

\--

“ _ The movie’s has been closed for four years? Man that’s tragic, _ ” Sam says absentmindedly in the phone, like he’s not really listening to what Steve’s telling him. Which Steve doesn’t blame him for in the slightest bit. He too isn’t really listening to what Sam says, and only half watches the rerun of an old Hell’s Kitchen episode and lets the other half of his brain drift off into… nothing. He’s not thinking, he’s not even staring, every now and then he blips and then thirty minutes has passed, or so it feels like. 

“Something like that, I mean I didn’t go out to check but… yeah. Tragic,” Steve sinks down further in his bed and extends his right arm. He’s wearing the brace for his elbow again as the pains started to build again in the evening. Damn getting old, why couldn’t he do it with grace? “I met someone I used to know today,” Steve continues just so the conversation with Sam carries on for a little bit longer. 

“ _ Oh? They turning up to the reunion too? _ ” Sam asks. Steve pouts a little and finds it a shame that Natasha and Clint wont. He had enjoyed having dinner again in the diner that evening, and there had been a short moment where Natasha and Clint had been able to sit down with him for a bit of a talk. The food had been on the house, which Steve had battled reluctantly before realising that Natasha wouldn’t let him win. 

“No, she was two years underneath me, her husband one above,” Steve explains, still a little bit surprised that Natasha and Clint somehow got married. They hadn’t even been a thing by the time that Steve had moved away, though there had been some fascination on Clints part it seemed. Apparently they started going out a few months after Steve left, Steve had only gotten the quick rundown version of their relationship before they had pressed him on his love life. “They won’t be there,” 

“ _ What about that friend of yours? The one that ended up complicated or whatever it was you said? They turning up? _ ” Sam asks, there’s noise coming from his end on the phone so Steve guesses that he gets up to head to bed. For as far as Steve knows Riley’s already asleep. Sam also is one hour ahead of him, because of timezone reasons, which at this point annoys Steve. He wants to be able to talk to Sam until he gets tired enough to sleep, but now that seems unlikely. 

“I don’t know, maybe. I saw him today. Thought about saying hi,” Steve rolls his eyes when Hell’s Kitchen cuts to commercials again, and reaches for his bag of chips. He finds it disappointedly nearing empty. He wonders what Bucky’s doing right now, maybe he’s watching the same show on tv, maybe he just got up from his couch or whatever to get another beer to drink. 

“ _ Why didn’t you? Maybe you wouldn’t have to be all depressed on your own now if you had, _ ” Sam suggests and Steve considers it for a moment. Was it really because he was afraid to come across as stalkerish, or to be met with anger that he guesses was somewhat deserved, even if he still doesn’t entirely know what he did wrong to make Bucky  _ that _ angry with him. 

“I don’t know, scared I suppose,” Steve admits. Sam is probably the one and only person on the world who he could admit that too. He knows that Sam wont mock him for it, let alone even tease him for it. Sam will just take the fact and accept it, Steve was scared, simple as that. Nothing more and nothing less. 

“ _ Can I ask you something? _ ” Sam asks, Steve hums his response and checks his bag of chips again, in the hope that it magically refilled itself. “ _ That friend of yours, were you just friends? Or were you more than that? I’m sensing that there’s more to this story that you’re not telling me Steve, you know you can talk to me right? _ ” 

“I know,” Steve says, thinking about it for a little. Sam patiently stays quiet over in New York. There’s the sound of a fridge opening.  _ Oh good, _ Steve thinks. He’s just getting another drink. Sam’s still going to be up and they can still talk. Sam can continue to placate him. “We were more than friends. But I’m not quite sure what we were you know? It was unspoken, but very, very much there.” Steve begins, thinking back of the countless of hours they had spent making out in Bucky’s truck, on the back of it buried underneath blankets. Hands that had discovered one another in a way that no one else had the chance to. Having sex in Steve’s bed in the middle of the night with hushed voices and moans for a handful of times. And on the back of that truck that one late summer evening when they had nowhere else to go, just before Steve had to go. “We were, but we never said it out loud. Does that even make sense?” Steve asks and rubs his face, the brace becomes uncomfortably tight around his elbow as he bends his arm, so Steve extends it again. 

“ _ You were sweet on one another, and it was mutual, _ ” Sam filling in, once more, as always, making complete sense of the world without even trying. Maybe it isn’t even that hard, maybe it never was. Maybe Steve just worries too much that it is, and that makes it too much. “ _ Did you love him? _ ”

“I did,” Steve answers without even thinking about it. He doesn’t have to think about it. He knows he did, with all of his heart and a little bit more. At the time there had been little else that had mattered more than Bucky. Fuck, that was what was making it all so difficult wasn’t it? That he once had loved Bucky? Every single man he had met after Bucky had always been compared to him. 

“ _ Did he love you back? _ ” Sam asks and flops back down in his couch. Steve doesn’t answer at first. He doesn’t really know. He wants to say yes with the same amount of instinct as he did when he told Sam  _ he _ had loved him. But they had never said it out loud. Bucky certainly had looked like he wanted to say it half a million times, but he never did for reasons that are entirely his own. Reasons that Steve doesn’t even know. 

“I don’t know, maybe? I never asked him, he never said he did. And it’s wrong to assume he did. Maybe he didn’t, maybe he did, maybe he met someone else now and realised that what he felt towards them was true love. I don’t know Sam, I really don’t.” 

On the other end of the line Sam hums disapprovingly. Steve rolls his eyes again and Hell’s Kitchen begins once more. “ _ Do you still love him? _ ”

For some reason that Steve can’t quite fathom, Sam’s question feels like a punch to his gut. Steve almost wants to jerk up one of his legs to cover himself. He thinks it’s a bastard question, and frankly feels a little bit angry with Sam for asking him such a thing to begin with. His anger soothes however, when Steve realises that he doesn’t know the answer to that question either. The correct answer he supposes, is that he shouldn’t. It’s been so long, is it even possible to still love someone after all that? 

Still, it’s fucking  _ idiotic _ to be in love with someone that he hasn’t spoken to for that long. Most likely Bucky is entirely different from how he used to be. Maybe he grew up to be like George, even if Steve finds that difficult to believe. Maybe Bucky now is the kind of person that Steve hates. He doesn’t know. That’s the worst part, the not knowing. 

“Can we talk about this some other time? I’m getting tired” Steve asks him instead, knowing fully well that sooner or later he’ll have to give Sam a answer because Sam wont let it rest. Riley wont even let it rest as soon as Sam tells him when he heads to bed that evening. But he can push it for now. He can meet Bucky first tomorrow, if he turns up in the first place. He wouldn’t put it beyond Natasha to call Bucky and tell him. What if he doesn’t come because of that? Steve wants to groan but doesn’t, he won’t let himself get worked up about this. He’s not going to follow the rabbit down the hole, not tonight. He plain and simple doesn’t want to. 

“ _ Alright, _ ” Sam agrees in New York. “ _ Was going to head to bed now anyway. Just, Steve? _ ” Sam asks, Steve hums again and begins to toy with the hem of his t-shirt. “ _ Promise to go in there tomorrow with a clear head, okay? And maybe if he’s there, talk to him. Whoever this guy is, after this long he’s still weighing down you. You’re weighed down with regret pal. You need to do something so you can move on. Promise me you’ll do that, okay? _ ”

“Okay,” Steve agrees with a little sigh. “Yeah okay, I promise,” Steve says as he presses the palm of his hand against his eyes. Once more his brace around his elbow grows uncomfortably tight. “Good night Sam, thanks for the talk,” 

“ _ Good night Steve. _ ” 

\--

Steve doesn’t sleep well that night. When he dreams he dreams of Bucky. He dreams of them sitting together in the park, eating ice cream and Bucky basking in the sun. He dreams of Bucky’s breath down his neck, soft kisses stolen somewhere hidden away and a hand on his hip. He dreams of feeling so good with him. He dreams of Bucky the boy, grinning wide with just one tattoo on his forearm, and in the dream Bucky the boy changes into the man he saw at the field, even if he just saw him from a distance. His mind makes up tattoos for him which change with every second. But that grin is still very much the same. 

When Steve wakes up that morning, he learns that the dream he had was a wet dream. 

\--

Steve pulls up at his old High School a little bit past seven. The parking lot is remarkably filled with cars already but Steve finds himself a spot. He parks and gets out of the car, once he does he already hears the voices of his old classmates chatting away. He flattens out his shirt one last time and hopes that he didn’t dress up too much. Jeans and a black shirt felt like a safe bet for an event like this, but he can’t help but feel on edge around the people that made his life hell for so long. 

The closer he gets, the more he starts to question himself. What the fuck is he even doing here? He hates these people! Why the hell is he going straight back to their nest for some awkward socialising?  _ Hey Dan, nice to see you. Oh you got married and have 2,5 kids now? Good for you? Hey remember the time you broke my nose for the third time? _

Still, like the idiot he is, Steve keeps on walking and reaches up to the school. Outside are three men talking, cigarettes in hands and barely seem to notice him walking past them. It’s like he’s invisible, it’s like High School all over again. 

He pulls open the door to the gym and lets himself in without even bothering to greet them. He feels very keen at the idea to point out to Sam that if it had been  _ his _ reunion, he’d already be chatting people up. Why does he always follow through with Sam’s ideas again?  _ Because he’s usually right _ , is the first thing that pops into Steve’s head. And it’s absolutely the last thing that he wants to hear at that moment. Sam is not always right about everything. Sometime he will get something wrong, and at this rate it’ll be this. 

Steve walks up to the table where a man and a woman are sat, talking with one another and waving markers around. They seem happy, and the woman is drinking from a red cup that has probably been spiked. Her shriek of laughter is almost a little bit false and makes his ears ring. With his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, Steve stops right in front of them. They both blink up to him, almost a little confused. 

“Hi. I’m uh, here for the reunion?” Steve shrugs with his shoulders, feeling increasingly more stupid as time goes on. The man, who’s tag on his chest says Adam, raises his eyebrows at him. Almost as if he can’t quite believe he went to school with someone like Steve. Adam however, Steve remembers, whizz kid in physics and science, but a bit of a wallflower with a tendency to blend in wherever he was, and with whoever he was. “I’m Steve? Rogers.” 

“Oh, jesus you’ve become big,” Adam says and grabs a tag for Steve and begins to write down Steve’s name. While he does Steve smiles awkwardly to the woman, who’s still giggling. Her tag says Stacy, while reading that Steve remembers that she had the exact same giggle at house parties whenever she was getting drunk. She’s skinnier now, though her skin reminds him a bit of leather. Too much sun. 

Adam hands Steve his tag, and Steve looks down to it.  _ Stephen. _ Heat flashes into Steve’s neck as he grows angry and annoyed. When he talks he can barely contain himself. “Come on man it’s Steven with a v, it always was a V. Not with a P and an H,” Steve hands the tag back, refusing to wear it. Adam looks mildly annoyed at Steve and takes the tag back. 

“Alright sorry yeesh,” He says and puts it down on the table, grabbing a new one. Stacy winks at Steve and puts her straw in between her lips. 

“It’s been a while sweetheart, don’t be mad?” She coaxes, then that sharp false giggle shoots into his eardrums again. Steve doesn’t say anything and just watches Adam write out the new tag. He takes it when Adam offers and checks it again. This time it just says  _ Steven _ . Steve would have preferred for it to say just ‘Steve’ but he’ll take Steven. He doesn’t say anything and steps away from the table, pulls the piece of paper from the back of the tag and tapes it against his chest. 

But before he goes into the gym, he takes out his phone and leans against the wall. He types away a quick text message to Sam, already bemoaning the reunion so far and whining about the tag disaster. He shoots send and watches the grey text underneath pop up saying it’s delivered. He waits an additional couple of seconds, hoping it changes into read, but it doesn’t. Either Sam doesn’t have his phone on him, or he’s purposely ignoring Steve so he’s forced to be social. He’s got a feeling it might be a combination of both. 

Steve takes three steps into the gym, and realises that every single group in High School, still exists in adult life. It makes him think of that song that was popular a few years back (and with a few, he now also realises that he means it to be more than ten years ago) about how High School never ended. Somehow he now sees the full truth in that song.

He recognizes the guys who used to be on the football team together, though only one out of four still seems to be in the same shape as before. They’re all talking with red cups in their hands, laughter loud enough to boom over everyone else and the music. Around a table there’s a bunch of women, who Steve wouldn’t have had a clue about who they were if it wasn’t for their hair. One blonde haired, one black haired and two brunette tells him exactly who they are and he decides to stay clear from them. There’s two men and one woman sitting by another table, one of them still wears thick glasses, and Steve instantly knows it’s the dungeons and dragons crew. 

It’s almost a little depressing, so rather than going in and saying hi, trying to recognize more people, he turns to the left and gets himself something to drink. He grabs a red cup and fills it up with punch, when he tastes it he’s somewhat surprised that it’s not spiked at all. Although by the table next to the punch is someone sitting scrolling away on their phone. On that table is bottles of liquor. 

Steve takes a sip of the punch again and looks around, still hovering at the edges of the gym much like he did when he was a teenager although now for different reasons. Back then he did it to avoid gym to make sure he didn’t get an asthma attack. Steve shuffles a little bit further away and finds a table which has a yearbook spread open on it. He looks at it curiously, tilting his head a little bit to the side, and then turns fully to flick through it. 

There aren’t that many pictures in them of him, he hadn’t really been part of many after school curriculums or groups. He finds himself amongst the snaps of everyone else, and groans when he reads his senior quote.  _ In a world full of conformists, moments of introspection in solitude makes you phenomenal _ . What the fuck had he even been thinking when he wrote that? Now all Steve feels while reading that is utter complete shame for it. 

Steve flicks another page, and finds Bucky’s picture there. He doesn’t have his hair tied up in the picture, it just hangs loose over his shoulders and he’s smiling a small mysterious smile. Handsome features for a boy of eighteen, with still enough of boyishness left in him. He wasn’t quite a man back then. Unlike Steve, Bucky has a more relatable quote written down under his name. Bucky’s just says  _ I like dogs _ . Clean, simple, and gives you the essence of what Bucky’s all about in one sentence.

He flicks through some more pictures, passing by several group photos and stops at the one of the art club. The only club he ever joined. As the smallest in the group Steve had been made to sit down on the floor in front of everyone else. His jeans are stained with colours, and there’s paint stains all over his arms. He looks angry in the picture, but Steve can’t remember what he was angry about in the first place. Teenagers were angry about everything and nothing. 

Bucky isn’t in any other clubs or group photos. He never had the time to join. After school he usually had to go straight back home to help his dad in the shop. He didn’t have time to hang out until past dinnertime, so most of the time that Bucky and Steve spent together on their freetime was outside after dark. 

There is one picture printed in the book of them together however. Out on a school field trip. They’re both sitting down in a field, Steve leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees, while Bucky beside him, leans back and basks in the sun, he’s got a piece of wheat in between his teeth and another smile on his face. Steve looks happier in that photo, as if he had been in the middle of telling a joke. Maybe that was why Bucky had been smiling in the first place. The caption underneath the picture reads  _ Inseparable best friends, Steve Rogers and James “Bucky” Barnes _ . 

Steve closes the year book and pushes it away from him. He never bought a yearbook during High School, they had always been so expensive and he didn’t want to burden his mother with that expense when money was tight. Then when she died there had been no one asking him if he wanted one beside school. He had told them no, he had no interest in buying one. Now, after having looked through it he feels a twinge of regret. He doesn’t have a single photo left of him and Bucky. Now all he wants is to have that picture from the yearbook framed somewhere. 

Steve finishes his punch and turns around, hoping for a table to sit down at. There’s plenty of open tables left, but he tries to pick one out where he’d have the least chance of having to talk to other people. He doesn’t have the chance to think  _ that _ much about it however. Over by the bleachers he spots him and his heart stops beating in his chest. Bucky is sitting on the bleachers, talking to someone. 

Just like the day before his hair is tied up behind his head, he’s holding a red cup in between his hands and he’s wearing a leather jacket. His jeans look old and worn, so Bucky clearly didn’t put that much effort in making himself presentable for their old class. Bucky had always had a wonderful sense of confidence on that part, always comfortable in how he dressed himself even if it was simple. He had been handsome then and he was still handsome now, when Steve can see him more clear. Bucky doesn’t look too happy however, talking to the other man like that. But he doesn’t look angry either, he just looks entirely indifferent. Then he reaches within his leather jacket and pulls out his wallet. From his wallet he takes a card and hands it to them. The man looks at him, appears to say thank you and then leaves Bucky sitting alone. 

_ This is it, _ Steve thinks. This is his chance to go over there and say hi. This is his chance to go and see if Bucky is still angry with him. This is his chance for closure, or something similar. Sam would have a better word for it and Steve’s not going to try and figure it out now. His legs feel heavy with lead, unwilling to move forward to him. He watches how Bucky looks around in the gym, eyes casting over everyone and then finally, landing on Steve. 

For a moment Steve isn’t sure that Bucky recognizes him, but Bucky’s gaze lingers. One second, two seconds. Three seconds. Then Bucky seems to scoff, pull a face and look away. That’s when Steve realizes that Bucky still very much realises and knows who Steve is. Steve tosses his red cup in the nearest trash bag and forces himself to go over there. He feels a little bit like a dog with his tail in between his legs, scared for something he can’t quite explain. 

But Bucky doesn’t get up and run. He remains seated and looks down into his cup, not looking at Steve. Somehow it’s stressful beyond means that Steve can’t quite explain. He stops a couple of feet before Bucky with his hands shoved down in his jeans and feels a little bit sheepish. Bucky still doesn’t bother looking up and to him. “Hi,” 

“Hey,” Bucky responds without looking up. He doesn’t sound interested and it tears at Steve’s heart. He doesn’t like Bucky’s tone to him like that, he doesn’t like the idea of Bucky being so angry with him still after all this time. Hell, Steve’s not even entirely sure anymore what they fought about to begin with. 

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Steve offers as a bridge for a conversation. Bucky just shrugs his shoulders and tears his gaze away from the red cup that he’s been staring into and looks at Steve. His eyes are still the bright steel colour that Steve’s always known, though now there’s a hard edge around them. Steve’s not sure if it is because Bucky still might be angry with him, or if it’s just another painful admittance that they’re only two years shy of forty. 

“Well, what else is there to do here?” Bucky asks him. Steve snickers and nods a little bit in response. He can’t deny that. Even so he’s certain that Bucky could find more things to do in the area just because he chose to stay behind. He still knows all the ins and all the outs of Lewisville. 

“I guess you’re right.” Steve keeps his gaze on Bucky, who almost like a predator just stares right back at him without a hint of fear or discomfort. He stands solid to whatever comes his way, just like Steve always remembered that he did. “Can I sit?” Steve asks and points over to the spot on the bleachers beside Bucky. 

“It’s a free country,” Bucky says with a roll of his shoulders and looks away while drinking of his red cup. Truth to be told the response is a little bit discouraging, but since when has Steve ever been the type to back away from a challenge or a fight. So he gets up on the bleachers and sits down beside Bucky, rubbing his hands together as he looks over the party. 

“Do you hang out with a lot of people from school now?” Steve asks him and tries to catch Bucky’s gaze again, tries to open up a conversation with the other man. Yet the only thing that he can think of is how  _ nice _ Bucky smells. He smells like woodland and somehow, the sun. Now when Steve’s sitting closer to him he can spot patches of grey in Bucky’s beard, and a few strands in the same silver colour in his hair. There’s lines around his eyes which make him look sad, and that makes Steve feel horrible for him. He doesn’t want Bucky to look sad, or feel sad. 

“Not really. I don’t really care,” Bucky says and looks down to his cup again before drinking. It’s a hard answer to what Steve offered up to Bucky, for a second he’s not entirely sure on how to continue that conversation with him. So he says nothing. 

“I saw you talking with him though. What’s his name?” Steve tries again, hoping to find some common ground. He just wants Bucky to relax a little, he can almost feel the tension radiating off him when Bucky tries to keep as much of his answers to himself. Close to heart as if he’s afraid that Steve’s just going to rip them out of his fingers if he dares to show them. 

“That’s Joe. I just gave him my business card,” Bucky says and checks the contents of his cup again, clearly more interested in not seeing the bottom of it rather than talking to Steve. Now however, it’s disappointingly empty, but Bucky still seems to check if he can drink the remaining few drops in it. See if it’s worth it.

“Oh? What do you do now?” Steve asks, pretending not to know about Bucky’s boarding kennel. Pretending like he never took a drive out there himself the day before to have a look and like he never saw Bucky standing by the field with five dogs. 

“Cut the crap Steve I know you know I work with dogs,” Bucky says sharp and looks at Steve, looking him straight into his eyes with those steel coloured of his own. The blood rushes to Steve’s ears as he realises he is busted, and worries just how Bucky knows that  _ he  _ knows. “Natasha called me, right after you guys had that lovely little dinner together in The Black Hawk? She told me you were back in town for the reunion. So yes, I’ve known you’ve been back in town since yesterday, and I’ve know you arrived the day before yesterday. And I know she told you what I do,” 

“I should have known, shouldn’t I?” Steve mutters under his breath, feeling incredibly stupid. The heat that’s radiating from his ears spreads over to his cheeks. Bucky nods in response. “I’m sorry,” Steve says on a low tone, still feeling a little bit ashamed over the whole ordeal. 

“Yes, you really should have,” Bucky says and gets off the bleachers, leaving Steve sitting there on his own. He turns around to face him again. “What are you even doing here Steve? What is it that you’re trying to achieve?” 

“I…” Steve stammers, not even certain how he’s meant to continue after that. He’s not sure what he’s trying to do, not entirely, just patch things up again? Try to get closure in whatever way that comes? So he can move on? Maybe he’s attempting to achieve that? Maybe open up a chance for them to have a friendship of the like? “Why are you so angry?” Steve asks instead. 

The question catches him off guard, and for a moment all Bucky does is just stare at him. Then he clenches both of his fist and brings them up to the sides of his head. The next second looks incredibly childish, Bucky stomps with one of his feet to the floor and lowers his fists again. He looks furious, like he’s on the edge of a tantrum. But he doesn’t give Steve a response, he just turns around and walks out of the gym, leaving Steve seated alone on the bleachers. 

Steve stares after him for a moment, almost unable of comprehending what just happened. Then when a minute or so passes Steve looks down. He feels his phone in his pocket vibrate, and he guesses it’s Sam texting him back. Steve doesn’t take out his phone to check however. He looks over the reunion one last time, and then gets up to leave. He has no reason to stay anymore, the only real reason as to why he came in the first place was Bucky. 

Now with Bucky gone, he has no interest in staying anymore. 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve stops at the one and only nightshop in Lewisville, and heads in to get himself a six pack of beer. There’s a couple of teenagers sat on the curb outside, drinking energy drinks and making loud jokes, not caring about him in the least. That’s fine, Steve doesn’t care about them either. 

As he walks through the shop to pick out cheap but yet decent beer, he tries not to think too much on the heavy feeling in his gut. But he can’t. He doesn’t want the matter of Bucky rest, he doesn’t want to have to drive to the airport the next day and use his open return ticket back to New York and leave Lewisville like this. He doesn’t want to leave with so many matters unresolved. 

Bucky is still angry, furious even for a reason that Steve can’t quite understand. That doesn’t bother him so much, what bothers him is that Steve  _ too _ feels like he should be angry at Bucky, for a reason that he can’t even remember himself. At least not fully, what’s the point of being angry with someone when you can’t even remember why? 

When Steve pays for the beer, he decides what he’s going to do. If he still knows Bucky, and he likes to think that he does, then he knows where Bucky is right now. If he still knows him, he knows that Bucky is stubborn as fuck, and just needs a moment to cool down. Which Bucky never would admit because he is that stubborn. 

Steve could give Bucky fifteen minutes, then go over there and offer the beers as peace offering. Just say that he’d like to talk. He has a nagging feeling that Bucky too isn’t to happy with their current situation and wants to do something about it. 

Steve puts the six pack in the passenger seat and sits down in his rental car. The drive to the field would only take him ten minutes, but then Bucky barely would have had a chance to wind down. So for the next fifteen minutes Steve sits in his car, scrolling mindlessly on his phone and through a variety of social media apps, all while ignoring the text that Sam sent to him. He doesn’t feel like he’s in the right headspace for that right now. 

Once he’s scrolled away most of the time on reddit, Steve drops his phone in the cup container and starts his car. He backs out on the road and heads for the field. If Bucky isn’t there, he promises himself that he will try Bucky’s home. If he’s not there either, well, then Steve will just have to come to terms with never having patched things up with Bucky and to shell out several thousands of dollars again for a high end therapist. 

He finds the field with little effort, and only meets one car on the way. Steve drives by it for a little while, and eventually spots a truck. What surprises him a little, is that it’s still the very same truck that Bucky had when they were teenagers. Steve could recognize it a mile away. He parks the rental and gets out, taking the beers along with him. It’s still pretty warm, but now with the sun set the long grass in the field wets his jeans as he makes his way to the truck. He knocks against the door and heads to the back of the truck and peaks over it. 

Sure enough, there’s Bucky, laying amongst the scattered blankets, pillows and sleeping bags. It looks comfortable still. Bucky has an arm behind his head and looks to Steve, then he snorts and looks straight up to the sky. “I should have known you’d come,” He says, but at least he sounds a little bit amused when he speaks. There’s even the hint of a smile, which makes Steve feel a little bit better about everything. 

“Yes, you really should have,” Steve says, mimicking the conversation from earlier. Bucky seems to notice as he chuckles in response. This is good, Steve thinks. This is real good, if Bucky’s at least giving him amused little chuckles in response then that means that he’s calmed down enough to at least talk. No more being on the verge for childish tantrums. “I brought a peace offering?” Steve raises the six pack for Bucky to see. 

Bucky looks over, eyes fixed on the six pack. Then he nods. “Alright, yeah alright.” Bucky sits up a little to reach for the beers which Steve hands over to him. He tears one from it and cracks it open before drinking from it. Steve remains standing by the truck, arms resting against it. 

“Can I come in and join you?” Steve asks Bucky. As a kid he would just have climbed in without an invitation. But as a kid they hadn’t been on this thin ice before. Bucky however nods and invites Steve up in the truck with a wave of his hand. Steve heads to the bottom of the truck, puts his foot up on the tire and lifts himself into the back of it. He scoots up to the top of the truck and stretches out his legs, taking one of the beers for himself. 

For a moment neither of them say anything, they just sit and watch the sky while sipping of their beers together. It almost becomes a little bit of a game, who will speak the first word and break the heavy silence that hangs amongst them. It’s a comfortable silence however, and it makes Steve think of a quote that he saw in a movie a long time ago that he can’t quite remember. 

_ That’s when you know that you’ve found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.  _

But the silence is also a door, without opening the door they won’t be able to move on. Steve wants to move on, he wants to put everything behind him. He has missed Bucky for so long, he wants to be able to laugh with him again. Wants to be put at ease by the voice that is now even deeper than it was when they were boys. He wants… Steve’s not sure what he wants. 

“Why are you here Steve? Honestly?” Bucky asks without looking at him. Yet comically it feels like his eyes are drilling holes all over Steve. Like he’s observing every single move and breath that he even considers to take. Steve takes a deep breath through his nose and adjusts a pillow behind his back. It’s a loaded question which at the same time is so easy. There is no easy answer to it however. 

“Honestly?” Steve repeats and sighs, he looks down to his can of beer and reads the label on it, though he more like just looks at it. The moment he’s read it he’s already forgotten about it. Beside him Bucky turns, this time actually looking at Steve. It’s a gentler gaze however, not one that drills holes in him and keeps an eye on every movement. This is just Bucky observing him while he waits for an answer. “I didn’t even want to come. I was having a shitty day. Shit week. Shit month. Shit year. I was so close to just, locking my door and banging my head against it for hours and hours until it cracked open. But I got the letter, the invitation. They addressed it to Stephen Rogers. With a P and an H,” He pauses a bit, Bucky snorts just like he thought he would. 

“I was talking to my friend on the phone at the time. And I started ranting to him. He listened, because he’s a good friend. And then, he says that maybe I should go. Maybe it could be fun. I needed to get away, it’s like he thought the invitation was an omen or something. He was right, I did need to get away. So I packed my bags, and I came. I arrived here, and… that’s that, that’s why I’m here. My friend told me I needed a break, and I listened to him. Somewhat,” Steve says with a shrug, forces up a smile that feels fake and smiles it at Bucky. Bucky looks at him, that very same observant but now gentle gaze. Bucky doesn’t buy the fake smile. 

“Does it feel like a break?” Bucky asks, careful and calculated while he sips of his beer. Somehow the question makes Steve feel a little like Bucky is his therapist asking him questions. Bucky however could dig deeper than any therapist ever could. In that instant Steve could pour his heart out to him. Tell him of how fucking miserable he’s felt the past two decades. He imagines it already. Bucky would give him a few wise words, and somehow everything would resolve itself. 

“No, not really,” Steve sighs and finishes his beer, crushes the can and tosses it to the ground. He’ll pick it up before he leaves later, no need to let it stay in nature. “Supposed to though, isn’t it? It’s funny. Cause I think if I would have gone elsewhere then it wouldn’t have been much of a break either. I don’t think I can catch one anymore.” 

Bucky doesn’t offer any wisdom to that, he just sits silently and looks away from Steve, back up to the stars. Steve watches him for a moment, it takes him at least two minutes before he realises that Bucky isn’t going to say something, and is willing to sink them both back into that comfortable silence. Willing to close the door that had just been cracked open. “Why are you still angry with me?” 

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to sigh and finish his beer. He too drops it beside him over the truck and into the grass. No doubt with the same intent as Steve to pick it up later. Steve doesn’t stress the answer, he watches Bucky think of what to tell Steve. Oddly enough, Steve doesn’t feel nervous while he waits. He feels calmer than he’s ever been, prepared for whatever Bucky is going to throw his way. 

“Because you left,” Bucky eventually says and grabs another beer from the six pack in between them. Steve blinks at him surprised, Bucky doesn’t notice, or rather, it seems like he  _ chooses _ not to notice. Steve stares at him when Bucky cracks the beer open and takes another drink. 

“I asked you to come with me,” Steve says. He remembers that evening vividly. It hadn’t been that unlike this very evening. The sky had been clear and there had been an equal amount of stars in the sky. They had even been sitting together in the back of the truck like this, or rather, laying down. Whispering to one another in hushed voices as if the dark could hear everything they had to say.

“And you knew very well that I couldn’t come with you,” Bucky shoots back, quickly and filled with fire. There is emotion in his voice that betrays him, shows that it’s still raw and painful for him to think and talk about. It tells Steve that Bucky’s done what Bucky always does best, he built a wall around it and denied it ever existed. He moved on with it still branded in his chest, and now Steve’s here to ask him about it and he doesn’t like it at all. 

“I didn’t,” Steve says softly, shifting a little so he could look at him. “Bucky I didn’t. What reason did you have to stay? Your dad? The shop? You fucking hated the man and you hated working in his shop. Lewisville? What the fuck was Lewisville ever going to do for you? Friends? We hardly had any, save for Natasha and Clint. And back then we didn’t even know if  _ they _ were going to stay. I was going to leave, you could have come with me. We could have gone to New York together and we could have been happy. Hell, it didn’t even have to be New York, we could have gone anywhere, we could have gotten in a car, like this truck right here and just driven off with no destination in mind. I didn’t know you couldn’t come with me.” 

“It’s not that simple,” Bucky says sharply, annoyed even. He doesn’t even bother looking at Steve. Steve is still burning for an answer, wanting to know why Bucky couldn’t come with him. If it wasn’t that simple he wants it explained to him. The sooner the better. The more detail, the better. He wants to know every single thing that he could have done differently and that he could have changed so that Bucky could have come with him. In a flash he thinks of all the dreams he had when he first moved to New York, the daydreams he had when he was drawing his illustrations of Bucky waiting for him in that small apartment. Their life, their start at building their own happiness away from everything that ever held them down. 

“Then explain it to me,” Steve persists. Trying to catch Bucky’s gaze and look into his eyes. But Bucky isn’t cooperating to that, he looks away, or down, whatever is the easiest at the moment. Almost as if it’s a minefield that Bucky doesn’t want to venture into. 

“I couldn’t come with you, because what the fuck was I gonna do in New York? You had a skill, you had a talent and you could build on that. And you did, I know, I’ve googled you sometimes you know? You’ve built something marvelous. What the fuck was I gonna do? I would have held you back, so so much. And you wanted more than I did Steve. You wanted what I couldn’t give you. We were… we were--” Bucky gestures with his hands as if that explains everything. Steve just looks at him, but Bucky continues before Steve has to press him. “We were something back then, even if we never said it. And I wasn’t prepared to say it yet. I was still scared okay? I couldn’t say anything out loud and I couldn’t admit what I felt for you was real. Not to myself. You wanted to be able to walk down a street and hold my hand and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that here in Lewisville, because everyone would know, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to be open. My dad would have killed me! I would have been miserable myself at admitting that I was gay and in love with you. And I couldn’t go with you to New York where we’d constantly be together and in such uncharted territory where I’d constantly have to face what I wasn’t ready to face. And you, you wanted to move to Prospect Heights! I wasn’t an idiot Steve, gay folks like to live in Prospect Heights. You were ready for all of that, but I wasn’t. And I couldn’t hold you back. So I couldn't come with you.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say at first when he hears that confession. Out of all the things he came to expect to hear from Bucky, he hadn’t prepared himself for that. He had over the years come up with excuses and explanations and counter arguments for everything should he ever get the chance to see him again. It had kept him up for so long. Now, however, as Bucky finishes talking, Steve realises that none of his thoughts had ever involved Bucky not being secure enough in himself and Steve. 

“And I wanted you, god did I want you. All the time, over everything for everything. Don’t think I didn’t. I really really did. And I cherished every damn moment that we shared together in privacy, every touch and every kiss, every time we fucked and everytime we made love with one another. I wanted all of it. But I wasn’t ready to tell the world. And you were. So I said I couldn’t come, and I hoped that you’d stay, that we’d be here, in secret but together. But you didn’t stay. You packed your stuff after that fight and you fucked right off to the gay capital of the fucking world to be who you truly are. And every fucking day since I’ve regretted that I didn’t tell you.” Bucky continues to rant on, like his heart is bleeding and won't stop until Steve plugs it up one way or another. 

It breaks Steve’s own heart when he realises that Bucky’s crying. Tears are running from his eyes as he talks, making it evident to Steve that the Bucky who had cried so easily at the age of eighteen still was there somewhere within the hardened shell. He wants to reach out, wants to put his arms around Bucky and hug him, hold him close to his chest and hope that he’s not overstepping. That everything can be alright now when they’ve lifted their hearts. But Steve doesn’t, it occurs to him that just about now, he’s just as scared of overstepping as Bucky was then to tell him. 

“Every fucking day since I’ve left, I regretted I left. That I left you here,” Steve says. What he doesn’t share out loud however, what he knows that Bucky will know as well. Is just that he was to fucking stubborn to come back. That through the illogical way of teenage fighting just plain and simple had decided to stay where he was out of spite. Spite that Steve now realises was more directed to himself than to Bucky, no matter what he believed at the time. It appears that they both talked over one another. That they both were to warped up in their own minds to even realise what was going on. 

Steve had wanted to leave Lewisville because he wanted more, and rightfully so. Bucky had wanted to stay in Lewisville because it was the comfort and safety that he craved and needed at the time, and rightfully so. 

Bucky says nothing and wipes at his cheeks with his hand, drying them off somewhat. He sniffs, then drinks his beer. Neither of them speak again, sitting once more in silence. Steve shifts again to lean against the back of the truck and gives Bucky a moment to compose himself. Bucky takes it, although not for as long as Steve offers it to him. When he speaks again it surprises Steve that it’s so soon. His heart continues to crack when he can tell just how sad Bucky is when he asks him the question. 

“Are you happy in New York?” Bucky asks quietly, picking at the tin rim of his beer can without looking up. He looks younger like that, almost a little like the boy that Steve left behind. The boy that had been so scared to be honest with himself and to share that honesty with the word. 

“I work fifty-five hours a week,” Steve says with a shrug. “Not including overtime. I work all weekends. I rarely go out. I don’t have many friends. I don’t get to work on the art projects that I’d like to do, and they restrict what I can do on projects. I see a therapist bi-weekly. I haven’t had a real relationship in over a decade, and the ones before weren’t even serious. Every now and then I get to catch a movie in the cinema. But I’m usually too tired to stay awake. I am exhausted during the day. But at night I can’t close my eyes. I roll around in bed and I fall asleep around three in the morning. I’ve had three burnouts in three years. I’ve been trying to watch Game of Thrones for the past seven years, but I’ve only reached up to season three because I don’t have the time. I can’t wind down when I’m on holidays. No, I’m not happy in New York, I’m not happy at all.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says softly, like it wasn’t the answer that he expected to hear. Despite everything Bucky was still holding out to the idea that Steve could have been happy in New York. Despite everything, once more he put Steve’s needs and thoughts above his own. Steve shrugs as if it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t, not to him. 

“Are you happy?” Steve returns the question, hoping for a brighter response than his own. Hoping for a tale where Bucky settled himself in life and found some happiness. Then he thinks of Natasha, how she had told him that Bucky  _ had _ spent a long time angry. Bucky wasn’t the kind of man who moved on easily. 

“Not really,” Bucky’s admission comes out like a breath of fresh air. Somehow though, Bucky manages to sound at peace with what he’s about to say. As if he’s since long accepted it. “I was angry for a long time. I worked with my dad, I fought with my dad. Then he got that heart attack and ended up in the hospital. Got another one there. He never came home. That was somewhat of a bright moment. I was all alone after that, I kind of liked it. I ran the shop for a while, then shut it down. Didn’t really know what to do for a while after that. I ended up trying to come out, ended up in a shitty relationship. We didn’t last very long. Fought a lot, should have expected that with Rumlow. The cops got involved a couple of times. I started the boarding kennel. I liked that, have been keeping to myself since then really.” Bucky says nothing for a moment after that, then he breaks out into a little smile and drinks of his beer. “I too see a therapist bi weekly.” 

Steve snorts a little bit. Glad that he’s not the only one who sits down and spews out his miserable life to a stranger, pays them to listen and occasionally give some advice. “You got in a relationship with Rumlow?” Steve asks, marvelling a little bit at the idea. Bucky still has that little smile across his face and nods. “But you hated that guy’s guts?” 

“I did,” Bucky says and shrugs. “I mean, I still fucking do. But…” Bucky laughs a little. “Do you have any idea how many matches I get up in the area if i open up grindr? And do you know how many of those are people in my age that I was willing to be with? Lewisville might have a lot of jackasses who don’t mind getting their dick sucked by a guy as long as they get their dick sucked. But they sure as hell mind when they’re asked to return the favor.” 

Steve chuckles again and raises his shoulders. He guesses he sees the point in that. He  _ did _ move to a gay neighborhood after all. Whereas Bucky was still stuck in Lewisville where  _ don’t ask don’t tell _ was the hive mentality that mattered. He doesn’t doubt Bucky when he says there aren’t that many people in the area. “But… Rumlow, really?” Steve asks again, grinning a little while he does. Bucky laughs a little, the air in between them feels lighter than feathers. Now when they’ve touched on all that they harbored within them for all these years. 

“Yeah, Rumlow, trust me I realised I fucked up pretty badly after a couple of months. I mean the sex was good and all that, but by god it was not worth it. He was an abusive prick who tried to beat me at times,” Bucky says with a grin, almost as if he thinks back on the encounters with a fond memory. Steve pulls a face. 

“He tried to beat you?!” Steve exclaims. He can’t imagine that happening at first, at least not until he remembers how Rumlow had been back in the day. He had been in Clint’s year in school and part of the football team. As if the amount of footballs he managed to catch would give him one additional brain cell which he dearly needed. 

“Oh I broke his nose when he did,” Bucky says with a smile and looks at Steve. Steve looks at him, flabbergasted, then snorts. Of course Bucky wouldn’t just take that laying down. Of course he would throw a punch back. Contrary to Rumlow, who got most of his fighting experience on the football team and in the school halls, Bucky actually had trained boxing for a few years per request of his father and knew how to throw a punch. Steve can imagine it how Bucky smoothly and with one punch breaks Rumlow’s nose to set the blood flowing. 

Steve laughs at the image, and becomes all the happier when Bucky joins him. Now, the air in between them isn’t just light, with a door wide open. Now it’s happy.

“So, the big apple isn’t what you thought it’d be in regards to dating? How have you not had a relationship for years?” Bucky asks and waves with his hand as if that asks the entire question for it. Steve shrugs, surprised that his ears don’t flush at the question. They always do when he gets asked the very same question by Sam and Riley. It’s equally innocent then, just them asking if he’s met someone, but for some reason he can’t help but blush when asked. 

“No. I mean… There’s definitely a lot more people around than Rumlow and old farmer Joe or something.” Steve begins. Bucky snorts. “But it’s hard finding someone who wants something more. Most guys just want to have casual sex and that’s it. Which is fine too, you won’t hear me talk down on them. But I want more than that. And the guys that I  _ have _ met and would have liked to get to know more, are into casual sex and didn’t want too. The guys that I didn’t feel any connection with wanted a relationship. So I’ve been going in an evergoing circle for years. And…” Steve halts. 

“And what?” Bucky asks him, prying him to continue after a few seconds of silence. Steve takes a breath. It really can’t do that much harm. He’s already confessed so much. Bucky has already confessed so much. Certainly he wouldn’t think to much of it right? It doesn’t have to mean anything anymore, even if he’d like for it to. Steve sighs. 

“And none of them have ever been you,” Steve confesses to Bucky with a sigh. Bucky startles just a little, barely noticeable out of the corner of Steve’s eyes. Then Bucky softens again and does something that surprises Steve. He reaches out and places his hand on Steve’s wrist. Instinctively Steve lets go of his beercan and keeps holding it with his other hand, all while he twists his had and laces his fingers together with Bucky’s. 

“I know.” Bucky’s voice is low and quiet, it’s almost like a whisper again Protecting themselves from the big evasive dark that is the night. “None of them here is really you either,” He says with a shudder, making it seem like it’s all he’s ever wanted to say since seeing Steve again. It warms Steve in his chest. The idea that Bucky might have missed Steve just as much as Steve has missed him is just as wonderful as it is sad. They could have had so much together, they could have shared so much with one another over all these years. Maybe they could have had a shot at being happy. They clearly were miserable without one another. 

Bucky’s hand is large, rough and warm. Calloused on certain points from the dog leads that he must have held in it over the years, but strong. It makes Steve’s own larger hand seem small still, and in a way he quite likes that memory. Thinking back of happier times when most of their concerns had been those of children. Bucky brushes his thumb over the soft skin of Steve’s hand. He looks back to Bucky, convinced that the other will be looking at the sky again, but he isn’t. 

Bucky is looking straight at him, his eyes seem dark in the night sky but ever observant and strong. He isn’t going to let Steve out of his gaze if he can help it. Steve chews a little on his lower lip and sees just how Bucky’s eyes dip just the slightest bit to watch that. “Can I kiss you?” Steve whispers to him. His heart that had calmed down so much, only for now to kick back in gear. Pounding in his throat while he waits for his answer. 

Bucky doesn’t answer him, but instead he tosses his beercan over the edge of the truck and lunges forward to Steve and kisses him. He lets go of Steve’s hand and places both of his hand in Steve’s neck to pull him in and keep him close, thumbs barely brushing over Steve’s bearded jaw. Steve makes a small noise out of surprise, but quickly forgets about it and kisses Bucky back with all his might. He tastes like the cheap beer that Steve bought, but his kisses are still very much the same as they were when they were young. 

It’s not an innocent kiss, it’s deep and it’s needy. Shaped by the desire for one another that they’ve been trying to ignore for all these years. Steve grabs Bucky’s clothes and pulls him closer, Bucky moves willingly. He strokes his hands in Bucky’s leather jacket and over the other’s t-shirt. Bucky’s body feels both harder and bigger now, like he’s nothing but a mountain of muscle. 

“Fuck,” Steve gasps in between their kiss, catching Bucky’s lips instantly and parting his own a little. Bucky’s tongue licks into his mouth and Steve groans. He puts his arm around Bucky’s neck and lets the other slide over Bucky’s back underneath the leather jacket, then pulls him in. Bucky leans against Steve with that, and it makes him slide down a bit in the back of the truck, so he’s half laying down and half sitting up.

Steve doesn’t quite know when Bucky even let go of Steve’s neck. Hell he’s not even aware of it until he feels Bucky press his lips against the soft little skin and nip at it. Then he becomes aware of how one of Bucky’s hands slides to the small of Steve’s back and lifts him up a little, making him lay down more. The other he strokes up Steve’s thigh, then back down again to grip at Steve’s ass. Steve groans a little from it, wrapping one of his legs around Bucky’s waist. His jeans are rapidly becoming extremely uncomfortable to wear. 

Bucky straightens up for a moment, tearing himself out of Steve’s arms. Steve looks up to him, panting a little and loving the familiar sight of Bucky in between his legs. It takes him right back to their nights spent in the back of this truck as teenagers. When Bucky tugs of his leather jacket he even uses the same movements as he did back then. He tosses it to somewhere on the truck, Steve doesn’t really care where it lands. 

Steve slides a hand under Bucky’s shirt, feels the muscles that he hides and can barely make out in the dark how Bucky has some more tattoos on his abdomen. The summer night is cool sure, but not cool enough to be cold, so Bucky indulges Steve and pulls his t-shirt over his head, revealing the strong upper body that he’s built on for the past two decades. There’s more tattoos than Steve expected. The tattoo that Steve thought he saw begins just underneath Bucky’s navel, twisting and turning over his hip before disappearing onto his back. He’s got a chest piece that Steve can’t make out in the dark, something on his side and several more pieces on his arms. Some Steve recognizes and knows, but for most of them he doesn’t have a single clue. 

Bucky leans down and kisses Steve again, deep and hungry, licking his way into Steve’s mouth again. Steve groans a little in it, stroking his hands up and over Bucky’s warm skin that must have been heated up from working in the sun all day. He feels how Bucky grinds his hips against Steve’s ass in a slow, experimenting roll to see if this is a line that they want to cross. Steve feels how Bucky’s cock is hard in his own jeans, and suddenly he wants nothing else. 

He tilts his head back and groans, exposing his throat for Bucky to kiss again. Bucky does just that. First he presses his lips against Steve’s throat, then he grazes his teeth against the soft skin. Before Steve even realises it, Bucky sinks his teeth in the side of Steve’s neck, biting down hard. Steve gasps and squirms a little bit underneath him, shivering a little from the dull and strong sensation in his neck. He’ll be sore there tomorrow, that much he already knows. 

Bucky however, pulls back and looks at Steve. “To hard?” He asks and suddenly sounds nervous as if he’s scared that he might have hurt Steve. Well, he had. But only in a good way. Steve shakes his head a little and trails his fingers over Bucky’s side, over the tattoos that he can’t wait to admire in daylight. If Bucky would let him. 

“No, no it’s fine.” Steve pulls Bucky in for another kiss, hoping that it’ll ease the worries out of Bucky. Above him, he can feel how he relaxes again. “I still like it when you do that,” Steve whispers to Bucky’s lips when their kiss breaks, he slides his hand from Bucky’s side to his front, up his chest and feels the hairs in between his fingers. 

Steve slides his hand right back down again, over Bucky’s stomach and cups his cock through his jeans, Bucky lets out a little groan. Steve only loves the feeling of Bucky’s cock against his palm and he can’t wait to wrap his fingers around him. “Can I?” He asks Bucky, stroking his hand up and down over Bucky’s jeans. 

Bucky doesn’t answer instantly, as if he’s debating with himself if this truly is something they ought to go through with. Steve hopes that they will. He wants Bucky now when he hasn’t had him for so long. In that split instant Steve realises that he never wanted anyone else, not in the past, and he’s not going to want anyone else in the future.

“Yeah, yeah okay, do it,” Bucky says with a nod. Steve smirks, surges to kiss him again while he moves his other hand down to open Bucky’s jeans. He does so quickly, moaning a little when Bucky places a hand on Steve’s cheek to keep him firmly in place while they kiss, their tongues meeting one another again. Steve tugs the zipper down and slides his hand inside Bucky’s underwear. 

Bucky groans at the touch and grinds his hips against Steve’s touch, now skin on skin. Steve grins, more to himself than to Bucky at that, and presses soft little kisses on Bucky’s cheeks as the other moans again from the touch. As Steve keeps stroking his palm over Bucky’s cock, wanting to give him some pleasure and relief, he pulls Bucky in and whispers to him. “Want to fuck me again? Want to fuck me like we did back in the day? Me on my back and you in between my legs like this?” 

It’s bold perhaps. But fortune favors them, so Steve doesn’t really care. If Bucky said yes to having Steve’s hand down his pants then he most likely has nothing against fucking Steve. Maybe he can still fuck out some of that anger that he carried around for so long. Maybe he can fuck him hard enough so Steve can actually feel something. 

Bucky’s answer comes by pulling away from Steve, pulling his hand out of his pants and then tugging Steve’s t-shirt up. Steve shimmies along with Bucky, ending up further down on the blankets and pillows that are scattered in the back of the truck. Bucky tosses the shirt to the side, his cock is now out of his jeans and underwear and he begins to press kisses on Steve’s chest. 

He grazes his teeth around Steve’s nipple, then nips at it gently before sucking, then with his tongue he trails down the middle of Steve’s chest and over his stomach. His fingers work diligently to open Steve’s pants, and when the two strong hands slide to the small of Steve’s back to lift him up, Steve works along lifts his hips. Bucky pulls of Steve’s jeans and underwear off, his sneakers along with it with one pull so smooth and perfected. One that could hint they’ve already done this millions, billions of times before.

Bucky’s own rough hand strokes Steve’s cock, once, twice, then wraps his fingers around it and tightens his grip just a little. Steve moans from the feeling, closing his eyes for one second and lets Bucky stroke him. There’s no feeling better, inside him it feels like someone lit a fireplace. “You’re lucky,” Bucky says somewhere far, far away. 

“Hmm?” Steve hums and opens his eyes to look at him again, he tilts head a little bit and tries to make as much of Bucky out in the dark as he can. “Why?” Steve asks, though he knows that there’s an infinite amount of answers to that. He’s lucky he took Sam’s advice and came here. Lucky he came here to make peace with Bucky. Lucky to have Bucky’s fist pumping up and down on his cock. 

“Lucky cause I’ve got lube and condoms in the truck,” Bucky says. Steve doesn’t even have to look at him to know that he’s smirking in the dark. Somehow the statement is hysterical to Steve, and he begins to laugh. He’s only all the more pleased when Bucky joins in with him, with a soft set of giggles. Despite all that Bucky keeps stroking Steve at the same pace he set. 

“You keep lube and condoms in your truck?” Steve asks. He knows that’s what Bucky said. He knows that he heard him right. But yet he feels the need to repeat the statement. Bucky shifts away from in between Steve’s legs, letting go of him. Steve takes the liberty to take himself in his hand and keep stroking himself, slowly, not rushing. He watches how Bucky shuffles up to him and opens the little window leading to the front seat of the truck. He reaches in and pulls out a bag. 

“You’re not the first person I’ve hooked up with in this truck.” Bucky opens the bag and rumbles through it in the dark, then curses as he can’t quite make out what he’s looking with so little light. Steve shifts and lets go of himself, taking Bucky’s bag out of his hands and setting it down beside him. He kisses him and presses a hand on Bucky’s chest, making him sit down again. 

Steve slows the pace a little, even if all that he wants is for Bucky to fuck him at that moment and instant with no hesitation, no consideration. But there’s something else he wants to do first. He reaches for the bag and blindly sticks his hand in it. He can’t tell half of the contents of the bag without looking, but after fumbling around for a little bit he finds what he’s looking for. Steve pulls out the condom and opens the wrapper. 

Bucky watches him with interest in the dark, and follows as Steve pinches the tip of it and then smoothly rolls it onto Bucky with little struggle, which strikes him as somewhat funny considering it’s been so long since last time. He kisses Bucky one last time, before settling further down and in between his legs. 

“Oh,” Bucky breathes softly as soon as he realises what Steve is up to, he brushes his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve kisses Bucky’s chest once, then scoots back and kisses the tip of Bucky’s cock. Bucky’s breathing hitches a little bit, but as soon as Steve takes him in his mouth he makes him moan. The condom tastes vaguely of cherries, and while Steve is a little disappointed that he doesn’t get to taste  _ Bucky _ , he also realises that it’s best to be safe. He knows he’s safe and clean, but he’s got no clue if Bucky is.

Bucky in his mouth however, is very familiar. The shape of his cock is just like Steve remembers it. Thick from root to tip, and hell, the scent of Bucky at his purest is still the same as it was when they were young. Steve bobs his head up and down a few times before pulling back just so the tip is in his mouth and sucks. Wanting to show off the few things he’s learned in New York at least. 

Bucky moans, deep down from his chest. His hand feels heavy on the back of Steve’s head, but he doesn’t push down on him which Steve appreciates. Steve continues to suck Bucky off, wanting to make him moan so wonderful. It’s like a fucking chorus to him, the most beautiful sounds he’s ever known. And the pride that he gets while  _ knowing _ that he’s the one making Bucky feel that good. He would have continued, he would have kept blowing Bucky until he came and then beyond that if he asked. But Steve wants more. 

He kisses him again and straddles Bucky’s hips, loving the way that Bucky’s arms move around his back and pull him in. Keeping him close enough for their chests to press together, Steve’s cock in between them. One of Bucky’s hands trails down Steve’s back and squeezes his ass. Steve lets out a pleased little sound at that. Bucky breaks the kiss and smiles up to him. “Still want me to fuck you?” 

“Yes.” Steve swallows and nods a little, dragging his thumb over Bucky’s kiss swollen lips. Bucky presses a soft little kiss against it, and then another one on Steve’s lips before he reaches for the bag again. Now however, he seems to find what he’s looking for far more easily. Steve doesn’t even see the lube, Bucky moves it behind him and sets to work. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, he just keeps pressing soft little kisses to Steve’s chest. Then Steve feels two well lubed fingers move down in between his ass cheeks. They push against him for a little while, not quite giving him anything just yet. It’s not until Steve’s carefully rocking his hips against it. Then Bucky slides a finger inside of him. It goes in smoothly, making Steve shudder a little at the feel of something inside of him. 

He’s not a stranger to it, despite the desert that is his sex life. It’s just the first time in a very long time he’s had an actual human inside of him, and not some toy that gets him off on a regular basis during the week. He moans a little before kissing Bucky again. Bucky happily obliges to that, kissing him back deeply and slowly while moving his finger inside of Steve in all the right ways. 

Bucky doesn’t wait much longer than that, moving a second one in soon after and gives Steve a little bit of a stretch while he sucks a mark in Steve’s skin. Just above the sensitive skin that he bit hard enough to leave a mark. He doesn’t seem to care that the hickey will be in full view either. Steve can’t think about it either, Bucky’s beard scratches against him in a wonderful way. “How many you want sweetheart?” Bucky whispers hotly against his skin. It takes Steve a little bit longer than he would have liked to come up with a response. 

“Three,” He says, knowing he could probably take Bucky on two. But Bucky is thicker than any of the toys he owns back in New York, and he would be uncomfortable for the most part until near the end. Then all the fun is gone. Bucky hums and slides in a third finger into Steve. Steve moans again, shuddering a little once more. 

“Shhh,” Bucky whispers to him and goes back to pressing soft little kisses on Steve’s shoulder. “Shh you’re doing so good, soon you’ll be ready for me, just little more.” Bucky encourages, moving his fingers inside of Steve at a quicker, more determined and unrelenting pace. 

Steve moans again, still rocking his hips steadily against the touch. Loving the feel of how they fill him up when he moves against Bucky’s hand. Loving the feel of his cock brushing against Bucky’s abdomen and chest, getting some sensation that way, however light and pleasing. “C’mon now.” Steve groans, grinding back against Bucky’s fingers who aren’t quite enough. Who stretch him wonderfully but don’t reach down deep enough. “C’mon let me have you,” Steve begs and places a hand on Bucky’s cheek, tilting his head back so he can kiss him. Bucky obliges and slides his fingers out. Then all of Bucky’s touch disappears as he lubes himself up. 

Then, with slick fingers Bucky grabs Steve’s hips and make them move down on top of him so he can feel his lubed up cock against the curve of his ass. The sensation of it drives him insane. All Steve wants is for Bucky to fuck him. And all Bucky is, is a fucking bastard right now for not giving him what he wants. 

Steve kisses him again, breathing loudly through his nose. Then as he pulls away he looks into Bucky’s eyes, wanting to make sure that Bucky understood the severity of what he’s about to say. “Bucky, I swear to god, I need you right now. Don’t keep me waiting like this like you’re some kind of asshole,” Steve hisses to him. Bucky, the bastard, now has the audacity to  _ laugh _ at him. 

Bucky’s fingers dig into Steve’s hips and makes him move up a bit. Steve goes willingly, feeling the hot tip of Bucky’s cock now pressed against him. Bucky’s eyes glitter up to him with expectation and Steve doesn’t begin to lower himself on Bucky’s cock until he feels that dig in his hips by Bucky’s fingers. A little pull to make him move down. Steve reaches behind him and presses his hand against the underside of Bucky’s cock to keep him in place. Then he does what he’s being nonverbally asked, and lowers himself on Bucky. 

There’s a bit of a stretch. And at first Steve has a horrifying thought that this isn’t going to work at all. He tenses up, which makes it near impossible for Bucky to enter him. “Fuck,” Steve curses and shifts a little again, trying to relax. Bucky seems to notice, he begins to press those same soft little kisses against Steve’s throat while gently dragging his fingernails over Steve’s back. It works. And Steve relaxes. 

Steve gives it his second attempt, and begins to lower himself on top of Bucky again. There’s a wonderful sensation of a push against him, the tip of Bucky’s cock wanting to be inside of him. Next there’s a stretch, and Steve moans a little as he feels Bucky slide into him. Once he makes it past the head, the rest of Bucky slides in so easily, as if the last time they did this was only hours ago. Steve pants a little, settling himself in Bucky’s lap and grinds against him, struck by how full he feels by having Bucky inside of him again. 

Bucky finds Steve’s lips again and kisses him slowly. There’s almost something passionate about it. Something loving that makes Steve feel warm to the core of his chest. He moves his arms around Bucky’s neck, just as Bucky himself moves his around Steve’s back to keep him still and to keep him close. Now that they’re finally together again, it seems like neither of them wants to let go of the other. 

Steve doesn’t rush the kiss, instead he enjoys it for as long as he can. For as long as Bucky’s willing to give him. That’s the beauty of it, the kiss almost feels timeless. With Bucky’s arms around him like that, one hand moving up Steve’s spine and tangling his fingers in Steve’s hair. 

Steve moves his hips, gently at first, making it barely more than a grinding movement. Bucky groans in their kiss and breaks it, his lips barely off Steve’s. Steve presses their foreheads together and does the movement again. And again. And again. 

Before long he’s building up a bit of a pace, he moves beyond the simple grinding movement. Soon Bucky slides out of him, a little bit more bit by bit and back in him when Steve lowers himself again. Bucky’s moans a little from it, moving one hand back to Steve and gripping it. Guiding him just a little with how he wants Steve to move on top of him. Steve happily obliges to that. He wants Bucky to feel good, he doesn’t care how they fuck, as long as they fuck. There’s no way on this blue planet where Bucky could be inside of him in a way that didn’t feel good to him. 

“Jesus.” Bucky pants, smiling a little before he kisses Steve again, tongue licking right back into his mouth. Steve groans, grabbing a fistful of Bucky’s beautiful long hair to keep him in place. He moves a little faster now, wanting to feel more of Bucky, more of the pleasure of him sliding in and out of him so easily. Bucky enjoys himself just as much, Steve can tell by the way that his fingers dig into Steve’s hips. How the little touch of control on it becomes stronger, how Bucky now begins to guide him more rather than suggest. 

“You like it?” Steve asks despite already knowing the answer to his own question. Despite all this time, Steve is thrilled to find out that Bucky still  _ sounds _ the same when he’s enjoying himself during sex. It’s a downright angelic choir of moans, little gasps and needy whimpers, struggles for air that he really doesn’t care about. 

“Yes,” Bucky says stupidly and it’s Steve’s turn now to laugh a little at the other.Bucky doesn’t seem to mind and their mouths meet one another for yet one more hot tangle. Bucky lets go of Steve’s hip and slides his arm back around his back, shifting a little with Steve still on top of him. “God yes,” Bucky whispers against Steve’s skin. Then he moves them both, making Steve yelp a little. Somehow without pulling out of him, Bucky shifts so Steve’s laying on his back on the pillows and blankets and stays in between his legs. 

Steve lets out a little groan at the first thrust that he feels. He moves one of his legs around Bucky’s waist, keeping him in place while he pulls his other up a bit, changing the angle of his hips a little. Bucky’s next thrust hits him deeper and Steve groans again, louder. 

“You still like it like this?” Bucky asks him and moves Steve’s leg up a little, changing the angle again for the better. Steve lets out another groan and shudders when Bucky thrusts inside of him, a bit harder now. “Still like it when you get fucked deep?” Bucky moves Steve’s leg so his thigh rests against Bucky’s chest. Steve whimpers and tightens his other leg around Bucky’s waist, trying to pull him in again. Bucky gives him another one of those hard and deep thrusts. The moan that leaves Steve’s throat is filthy and even sounds like it belongs in a porno. 

“Uhuh.” Is all that Steve manages to mutter when Bucky thrusts into him again, quickly building up the quick and hard pace that Steve originally wanted. He hasn’t even noticed how Bucky’s holding on to the truck for balance while he fucks him. Hell, Steve doesn’t even see a single thing, he has his eyes closed and is purely focused on the pleasure that courses through his body with every thrust that Bucky gives him. Hitting him on all the right spots. 

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you?” Bucky asks again just as he thrusts into Steve. The strangled sound that he makes is almost pathetic. Steve reaches above his head to hold on to the truck. By accident he scratches Bucky’s hand a bit as he grips the edge, but Bucky doesn’t pull his hand away. It stays there firm and solid as he thrusts inside of him, making Steve feel all warm. Making him feel like he’s like fireworks about to explode. 

“Yes, yes god yes.” Steve rambles to Bucky. He can’t quite think of anything else, like he has one brain cell left that would much rather focus on how Bucky fucks him than the destruction of the world. “God yes you feel so fucking good jesus christ keep going, keep going, keep going,” Steve begs Bucky, letting out a series of short little  _ ah’s _ over and over. His skin feels like it’s set on fire, in his gut something warm, powerful and primal is coiling, making him curl his toes a little. “Just like that please Buck keep going.” 

Bucky huffs out a short little laugh but does as he’s asked. He lets out the most wonderful moans, and inside of Steve Bucky feels thick, strong and unrelenting. He’s going to be a little bit sore in the morning but at that time Steve really doesn’t give a fuck. He wants more while he’s already having just enough. It’s to much while it at the same time to little. When is the last time he came handsfree? Steve can’t quite remember. 

Steve’s hand slips above his hand and he reaches back up to grab at it again. Instead he finds Bucky’s wrist and clings at it with his might. Bucky doesn’t even seem to notice this, his arm stays just where it is, carrying the weight of Steve and it’s just about the hottest thing Steve’s ever been part of in the last years. “Nearly there Buck, keep going I’m so close,” Steve whimpers to him and lets his eyes fall shut again. He can almost see the fireworks that his skin feels like behind his eyes. 

“Yeah? Like this?” Bucky asks his stupid question. But rather than continuing like he has been Bucky just grinds against Steve fully, moving fully inside of him and lifting Steve’s back up a little bit with the thrust. Steve just gasps breathlessly, digging his fingernails in Bucky’s wrist at the feel of Bucky’s cock inside of him. 

Bucky stays still just for a second, then takes advantage at the slight shift in Steve’s position and thrusts into him with a grunt. Steve tenses up, Bucky feels almost impossibly thick around him and every time he slides out there’s more added to the tingle that he already feels in his gut. He tenses up so hard that he feels close to a cramp, which only adds more to the sensation. He can’t breathe, and then his orgasm hits him like a fucking wall. 

Steve cums hard with a long, drawn out groan and he feels like he’s on fire. He feels every little inch of Bucky inside of him as he cums over his chest. Clenched down over Bucky’s cock he feels how the other grows just that little bit bigger. Bucky lets out a strangled little curse, pushes his hips against Steve and thrusts fully into him before he cums as well with a shudder. 

Steve licks his lips as soon as he comes down from his orgasm and blinks up to the figure of Bucky above him. That moment he wants nothing more for them not to have used a condom. For Bucky to have fucked him raw and cum inside of him, claiming Steve as his once more. 

Bucky lets go of the truck, breathing heavily and moves Steve’s leg off his chest and down to beside him. Steve just lets it drop down, not really caring about much at that moment. He feels to blissful to care. Steve reaches up to stroke Bucky’s cheek and grows a little surprised when Bucky takes Steve’s hand in his own, and kisses the palm of Steve’s hand. Steve swallows. 

“Come here,” He asks softly on a whisper. For a moment he thinks that Bucky might turn away. That he’ll pull out of Steve and that that’ll be it. But he doesn't. He lets go of Steve’s hand and leans down to give Steve the best kiss of his entire life. 

\--

The morning is air is chilly and crisp. There’s birds singing impossibly loud and they are the ones who wake Steve up. Despite sleeping in the back of a truck on a makeshift bed with pillows and blankets, Steve feels oddly rested. He sighs a little and curls up more into a ball. Bucky’s arm is around his waist, comforting and warm. It pulls at Steve’s waist and tugs him back a little. Behind him Bucky presses a soft kiss to the base of Steve’s neck. 

“Lay still,” Bucky mutters on a sleepy tone that yet manages to sound domineering. Steve smiles a little to himself however and doesn’t mind it in the least. He doesn’t have to move, not when he has Bucky being the big spoon behind him, listening to the song of birds on an early morning. For as far as he’s concerned he doesn’t have to be anywhere else for the rest of the day. 

“Sorry,” He whispers on a soft tone. It’s barely audible under the birdsongs. Where they always this loud? “Did I wake you? Or was it the birds?” Steve asks softly, feeling how Bucky’s thumb strokes his stomach light as a feather. There’s another murmur behind him, Bucky’s lips still pressed against Steve’s neck. 

“Birds,” Bucky mutters, sounding as if he’s still far far away stuck in dreamland. Steve doesn’t want to pull Bucky away from that warmth and comfort. So he says nothing in the hope that Bucky falls asleep again. He can lay here for as long as he needs too. He’s got no plans, no responsibilities, which… now make him feel utterly relaxed if he’s about to be honest. He feels the calmest he’s been right now in several years. 

For ten more minutes they say nothing, Bucky’s breathing slows down a little and the birds continue to sing. Steve closes his eyes and just enjoys the sounds that come with the countryside. It’s not until Bucky shifts behind him again, closing in a little bit of distance so he’s right up against Bucky’s back, that he opens his eyes again. Just in time to feel Bucky’s bearded cheek against his neck, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw. “Morning.” 

“Morning,” Steve muses and rolls a little onto his back so he can look at Bucky. He looks happy, the lines in his face that Steve had noticed the night before at the reunion don’t really seem to be there the same way anymore. He’s smiling a little, which makes him seem a bit younger. There’s millions of things that Steve thinks of saying to Bucky. Instead, what he says is; “You let your hair grow out.” 

“I did,” Bucky says with a little nod, a lock of that long brown hair falls past his ear and gently strokes Steve’s face a little. Bucky brushes it behind his ear again. “You always said my hair was one of my best qualities.”

“Mm, I did,” Steve says and reaches out for it, it feels soft to his touch “I stand by that statement.” He smirks to Bucky, who just snorts and rolls his eyes in response to him. Steve giggles a little bit and is struck by the way that Bucky just seems to  _ beam _ at him. Then he turns serious again as something begins to weigh down on his mind. Steve sighs a little and looks down to Bucky’s neck rather than look him straight in his eyes. The tanned skin is covered in little marks that Steve sucked into his skin the night before and he strokes his fingertip over them. 

“Are we gonna talk about last night?” Bucky asks him, and judging from the tone of Steve’s voice he doesn’t like the idea of doing so. Why would they? Why would they have to talk through it? They fucked, there was no denying that, Steve still feels it in the most wonderful way. The best sort of reminder. 

“I think we did a lot of talking yesterday,” Steve says and dares himself to look into Bucky’s steel eyes. “Before we started ripping each others clothes off.” There had been said a lot, both just confessing how downright miserable they had been the last couple of years on their own. Was there more to say? Did they really have to do that to themselves? Couldn’t they just forget that now? Move on with their lives. 

“Not about that.” Bucky rolls back onto his back and settles beside Steve, tugging one of the blankets up a bit higher on his chest. He looks up to the blue sky and the leaves of the trees above his head. Steve looks to his side, then rolls onto it so he can face Bucky, tucking his hands under one of the pillows. “We should talk about what we did. About what happens now. We should act… pretend we’re adults at least.” 

“I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Steve notices a faint hint of a smile on Bucky’s features, just the slightest twitch upward by the corner of his mouth. It makes Steve smile as well, flashing his teeth and everything even if Bucky doesn’t notice. 

“Neither do i,” Bucky says and looks to him. “I’m glad we did what we did. Even if it perhaps wasn’t the best decision in the moment.” He gestures a little with his hand and looks back to the trees above their heads again. Steve hums a little bit and thinks it over. 

“Wasn’t it though? We both needed comfort in a way. Needed to be close to someone, we gave that to one another. How is that not a good decision?” Steve asks Bucky, who doesn’t answer him. Who only thinks Steve’s argument through. All Steve had wanted last night was to have Bucky again, in whatever way he could. He had got Bucky in such a way that he never thought he’d have him ever again. 

“I guess,” Bucky agrees with a shrug. “What now though? You have New York, you have a life? What happens now? You go back and we pretend it never happened?” Bucky asks. The question sounds harsh and it stings in Steve’s chest a little, even if he knows what Bucky is asking should be asked. They should be on the same page with one another. Yet it almost sounds a little bit like an accusation that Steve will be the one to leave again. 

“I don’t know,” Steve whispers to himself more than Bucky. What does he even have to go back for in New York? Sam and Riley maybe, but beyond that? His job drives him to a burnout, he’s apartment isn’t that special and he’s never there anyway. He doesn’t get to make the art that he wants to make. “I don’t really want to go back to New York.” Steve confesses. Bucky looks at him, startled by the confession. Steve shrugs again. “You heard me yesterday. Life is pretty fucking shit there. I’m not happy, why should I go back?” 

“Where would you go?” Bucky asks on a whisper that almost sound a little hopeful. Steve tries to think of an answer. But can’t come up with one. Where would he go? He almost feels prepared to sell all of his shit and just live out of a bag. Live minimalist, find himself all over again and cast away all earthly possessions or some stupid shit that cults promote. 

“I don’t know,” He confesses honestly and pulls out one hand from underneath the pillow to begin toying with the blanket. Steve avoids Bucky’s gaze and chews a little on his lip. 

“You could stay with me?” Bucky suggests on a tone so soft that it’s almost a whisper. Steve looks up to him in surprise but Bucky doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean, you wouldn’t really have to do anything. You could just, hang out, paint a bit, whatever. We’d get to be together and… it’s stupid, forget it.” Bucky shakes his head and places the palms of his hands to cover his eyes. 

“What?” Steve says and props up his elbow to look down to Bucky, who keeps his eyes covered with his hands. “Buck what did you say?” Steve asks, although he knows exactly what Bucky said in the first place. He  _ knows _ that Bucky asked him to stay, but he wants to hear him say it again. Like a double click on a computer. 

“It’s stupid forget it,” Bucky says, cheeks flushing a little as he tries to sit up. Steve does the same and tugs the blanket to cover himself with out of reflex, and not because he’s bothered with Bucky seeing naked. Bucky begins to pick at his nails. 

“Buck what did you say?” Steve presses again and covers Bucky’s hands with his own. Stops the anxious way that he picks at his nails and thus forces Bucky to look back up to him. He looks on guard, as if he’s trying to judge if Steve is serious or not. “Please, I need to hear it,” Steve adds in the hope that it’ll make Bucky relax again. He realises he’s asking Bucky to put a whole lot of faith in him. While they hashed out their differences the previous night, for as far as Bucky’s concerned Steve still left him. How does he know that Steve wont do it again? He’s not going to, but Bucky doesn’t know that. 

“You could stay here,” Bucky says softly, still watching Steve with a guarded look. Then he seems to assert himself. Confidence seeps back into his bones as he sits a little bit straighter. “You could stay here, with me. If you stay. I don’t want a repeat on what happened. So I need to be sure that if you go somewhere, that either we both have decided it doesn’t work for us. Or if I’m going with you and we both decide to leave. I will not have you stay with me, allow myself to get invested in you again, for you to leave on your own again.” 

“I’ll stay,” Steve says quickly with a nod of his head, he squeezes Bucky’s hands. “Bucky I’ll stay here with you. I’ll only go to get more stuff from New York or get rid of it, but I’ll stay, I want to be with you. Maybe… maybe we were always meant to be together. Maybe we just never gave ourselves the chance to be together. We deserve that chance now. I’ll stay with you, if you’ll have me.” Steve’s heart beats hard in his chest as Bucky observes him. 

Then, the faintest hint of a smile becomes clear on his face. Steve relaxes as the hint of the smile, only grows into a grin. Bucky believes him, he realises. Bucky believes him when he says that he’ll stay. “Okay,” Bucky says and pulls his hands out from under Steve’s, places a hand under Steve’s chin and tugs him in for a short, sweet kiss. “Since you’re staying and all that, c’mon, we have dogs to walk.”


End file.
